Train Wreck
I have written before of my outrage with the trajectory of the Liz-Paul-Anthony plot in For Better or For Worse, the inherent racism within the strip, and the just plain old bad writing. [Ed: Please visit the links to refresh your memory of these characters. You're going to need it.]
This week, the trainwreck began in earnest, as Liz and Elly headed down to [insert Dragnet theme here] Mayes Motors to shop for cars. We all know who works at Mayes, don’t we. Oh yes we doooo….
And so we get this nauseating series of panels on Thursday, July 27.
Ok, a few questions:
Why is Liz, oh pardon me, ELIZABETH, wearing pants in today’s strip? During yesterday’s visit to Gordo’s shop, she was CLEARLY wearing a dress:
As it’s unlikely she went home and changed her clothes before going on the test drive, someone over at FBFW industries needs to stop hitting the bottle after lunch.
Why do Anthony’s comments in panel 4, “When Gord said you were coming in today…” contrast so starkly with “I saw your Mom in the coffee shop with Gordon”?
And oh look, we’re back to “WAIT!”
Liz: “My nerves are rattling.” Bitch, please. Those are butterflies in your stomach as your vagina begins to lubricate at the thought of the sticky-bun salesman leaving something sticky in your buns.
A commenter at The Foobiverse made the following point about the inherent racism in FBFW:
I have to agree, and in fact addressed this same tendency here. Constable Paul, while clearly a more compelling character than Granthony “I have no hooooooooooome” Caine and indeed a character to whom Liz has professed true love, simply does not stand a chance.
It’s that hot native blood (snerk) that keeps white Canadian girls warm when they travel north for a little of that multiculturalism we hear so much about, but is a little too hot-to-handle when it comes to breeding out of the race.
Getting back to buns for a moment, why the hell is a 20-something like Liz wearing the same clothes and hairstyle as her 50-something, eternally-menopausal mother?
For that matter, why is Granthony a dead ringer for Dr. Patterson with a mustache? I think we can all see how Johnston’s illustrations give the lie to whatever “But I love Paul” nonsense FBFW readers will have to put up with for… well, for however long this abysmal plot drags on.
I have to add that Granthony’s presentation looks like a young version of Sam’s Canadian grampa. As you may imagine, this instinctively makes me dislike the character. But I digress.
What’s with Anthony’s posture in panel one? Is he standing on tip-toe, or do his knees bend backwards? Did he have his human legs replaced with a great dane’s? That’s how my dog looks when he rears up on his hindquarters. Panel two intensifies my loathing and abject hatred of this character: the slightly bowed head and hunched back, the timid and tentatively bent arm, as if he wants to touch Liz or hug her, but he’s too afraid to do anything. Milquetoaste.
Liz’s surprised “Anthony?” reeks of contrived bullshit. I’m supposed to believe she’s surprised to see her ex-boyfriend at Gordo’s lot, when pretty much every Patterson knows that what he does for a living? This is simply laziness and disrespect for the readership.
Anthony’s dialogue in panel three has the desperate tenor of a man whose life has hit a dead end. It reminds me of a particularly pathetic episode in my own life about 4 years ago, when out-of-the-blue I met up with an extremely attractive ex-girlfriend I had been really cruel to when we dated a decade earlier. I tried to rekindle things, made mushy references to our past, and got all googly eyed over the girl for months. Naturally, she was repulsed and never spoke to me again. Of course, in the fantasy land called Lynn Johnston’s Brain this is a successful strategy.
This is what we’re getting set up for: in the next few days or weeks, Liz will either dump Paul, or more likely find that Paul has dumped her for the now-attractive Susan Dokens (intially drawn as kind of a rectangle, reappearing as Liz’s replacement at the reservation school with curves, breasts, and actual facial features). I’m betting on the latter: it’s well-known that LJ bases the FBFW characters on her own children, and she’s loathe to give any of her characters unattractive traits. Paul will dump Liz: bet on it.
Also coming down the pike: a court battle for custody of Francoise, Granthony’s daughter with the evil Therese (who IMO, isn’t evil: see “coffeecake”, linked above).
The strip has jumped the shark, the train has jumped the tracks, and the readers will go through months more of predictable plotlines, idiotic twists, and contrived plot devices that will do nothing but annoy.
And Anthony’s mustache? That motherfucking mustache has to GO. Now. It makes him look like a fluffer on the set of a Jeff Stryker film, cus god knows a foob like Granthony isn’t the star of anything.
Me too, Granthony, me too.
More at Foobiverse.
15 Responses to “Train Wreck”
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July 27th, 2006 at 8:30 pm
Brendan - Aside from pointing out lameness and inconsistencies in the strip that I love to obsess over, you also always articulate the rage and frustration that I am powerless to express. Your blog is excellent.
July 27th, 2006 at 8:47 pm
Thanks MCIM.
That may be because I’m always frustrated and enraged.
If this was FBFW, I’d close with a bad pun. Instead, let me just say that when responding, my fingers missed the keys and inadvertently opened a new window as I was typing “That”. The letters “hat” ended up in the navigation bar, and this site opened: Village Hatshop, which reminded me of finger-quoting margo at today’s Comics Curmudgeon.
It all comes back to Josh, doesn’t it?
July 27th, 2006 at 9:02 pm
Thanks for saving me venting about all this same stuff. This is the day I had hoped would never happen, but knew would. It’s all over except for sweeping up behind the elephants.
July 27th, 2006 at 9:21 pm
Dude I think your comments kick ass. FBOFW is the best/worst comic strip ever and you do the world a service with your website. Why am I obsessed with this horrible strip?! Keep it up.
July 27th, 2006 at 9:26 pm
Great post, as always Brendan. You pointed out that Lynn bases her characters on her own children; I wonder who Anthony represents? Lynn has leapt over so many moral hurdles to get these two together, I think that son-in-law better run. Lynn must have some serious unrequited love for him. Anthony is repugnant for so many reasons, marrying someone he didn’t love, chasing after Liz while he was still married, the poor-little-me attitude, the moustache, etc; and yet Lynn approves of this creep. And at one time she even prodded her own daughter to contemplate adultery on that infamous trip back to Mtigwacky. Was it going on here? She’s reaching Johnny Hart levels of insanity.
July 27th, 2006 at 9:33 pm
ScottR,
if I can’t figure out why I’m obsessed with the abortion called FBFW, I don’t think I can help you out either. I think on the wedding day, all the comics curmudgeon fans should meet somewhere (in real life), get drunk, and burn copies of the strip.
yello: you know, i keep hoping that maybe it’ll turn out differently, that maybe LJ has something clever up her sleeve.
then I look at pictures of the woman, and realize she’s fat, comfortable and bourgeois: as vacant and unimaginitive as a gift from the PBS “Signals” catalog.
July 27th, 2006 at 11:23 pm
With Lynn’s signature over Liz’s ass it’s hard to tell whether she’s wearing a dress or those middle-aged woman slacks as shown in the Granthony panels.
July 28th, 2006 at 5:50 am
I just want to say that the infamous “WAIT!” goes back further than that email. It was what Anthony asked Liz to do (for him) right after she almost got raped and he decided that was the perfect time to share his marital problems with her and tell her that he never really got over her.
July 28th, 2006 at 2:33 pm
TeriB: OH SNAP!! I’d forgotten about that!
July 29th, 2006 at 4:49 pm
Brendan, about Liz’s bun - I think it’s because global warming has hit Canada, too. (Plus, she’s a teacher, and a lot of them take that school-marmy thing seriously.)
When did Liz almost get raped? I blinked and I missed it.
July 29th, 2006 at 9:08 pm
Susie,
Liz was attacked by a coworker named Howard about… about a year ago I think. As it so happened, Anthony was in the neighborhood (why…?) and saved her.
July 29th, 2006 at 11:08 pm
Well, you know Anthony. He probably set her up and just “happened” to be there - to make himself look good, naturally.
August 2nd, 2006 at 6:38 am
[...] I’d like to thank Terib in comments for pointing out that “WAIT” has a deeper meaning here. I always thought it went back to the unfinished affections between Liz and Anthony dating back to high school, but it perhaps has to do with the aftermath of Howard’s attempted rape, from August 2005. [...]
July 6th, 2007 at 6:04 am
[...] It’s (gag) happened! Elizabeth and the dweeby, creepy, moustached Anthony have finally realised that each other is their Only Trew Love, and they’re going at it like… well, as far as anyone can go at it agressively wholesome, goody two-shoes comic strip. I’m not the only one. There is appalled-ness all over the internets. [...]
July 6th, 2007 at 7:12 am
[...] It’s (gag) happened! Elizabeth and the dweeby, creepy, moustached Anthony have finally realised that each other is their Only Trew Love, and they’re going at it like… well, as far as anyone can go at it agressively wholesome, goody two-shoes comic strip. I’m not the only one. There is appalled-ness all over the internets. [...]